Placing this snippet in a Play! template file <script id=”shopListTemplate” type=”text/x-jquery-tmpl”> <li>${name}</li> </script> will results in rendered page: <script id=”shopListTemplate” type=”text/x-jquery-tmpl”> <li></li> </script> So escape it: <script id=”shopListTemplate” type=”text/x-jquery-tmpl”> <li>${“\${name}”}</li> </script>